Three Years
by fleurs-du-mol
Summary: Post-Reichenbach ficlet drawing on ACD's canon stories and the BBC series. Mycroft and John have a conversation about Sherlock. I think it's complete, but I may be making more of a story out of it. Implied Johnlock; nothing too overt.


The look on Mrs. Hudson's face is reproachful because his food remains untouched, except for the bite he's nibbled off the edge of a bland, store-bought roll. Too much rising agent and artificial preservative.

She takes away the plate. He settles in his chair, looking around the flat.

Outside, the street is quiet. It's late. Deep blue night presses at the edge of the glowing windows, threatening to leech inside once the lights are turned out for bed. It's not particularly cold, but it is dark and infinitely still.

With the hinges of the front door recently oiled and the latch left undone, only the creak of wood on the stairs announces a visitor. There are level footsteps, the tread of a confident man. A man who is used to getting what he wants. The type of man who might often be told no, but won't take any answer but yes.

He is going to be told no.

The footsteps halt perfunctorily at the doorway. Mrs. Hudson pauses while washing dishes, ceramic clinking gently in the sink after the tap is turned down. She's listening.

"He wants to see you," says Mycroft Holmes.

There is pain in his words. Pain mingled with regret and resignation and the lightest suggestion of impatience. There's no accusation, though.

"You kept all of this from me," says John, going rigid in his chair. He won't look at Mycroft.

"You would have been shot."

"Yes, and how was that any different than all the other times I've gotten shot?"

"You wouldn't have survived."

The elder Holmes crosses the threshold of 221B and sits in the vacant chair, the one that used to be John's. John uses Sherlock's now. The chair that smells of cigarettes and black tea, gunpowder and London streets.

"And this… this was, what? Merciful?"

"Some might construe it as such," says Mycroft, eyes sharp even if his tone is mild.

"Three years."

"Things were complicated."

"Three _years._Not that three months or even three weeks would be much better." John's hands clench, unclench, spasmodically reacting to the anger he is trying to keep directed inward.

"Moriarty did his work well, dead or not. Sherlock was pursued; you were—" Mycroft stops himself as John suddenly looks across at him, reacting to the names. "It wouldn't have been safe for either of you until we'd taken care of everything."

Breathing in, John thinks of all the times he and Sherlock were involved in situations that were demonstrably unsafe. He shakes his head, the sound issuing from his mouth hardly recognizable as his own laughter. "No."

"No, what?"

"The whole world thought he was dead. I thought he was dead. But you know what? I never cleared out his stuff. Not any of it, even though I couldn't afford to move somewhere else and everyone was telling me to get rid of it, if I had to stay. That would have been cathartic, they said."

He hears Mrs. Hudson tiptoe to the bedroom now that she's finished the washing up, possibly to give John and Mycroft the facade of privacy. Mycroft watches as John breaks, shatters.

John is still laughing, composure gone brittle. He stands and gestures widely to indicate the whole space. The flat is still crowded with Sherlock, from the books to the jars to the stacks of paper in the far corner. The skull, the bullet holes in the wall, the yellowed posters.

"It's all still here. Some people would call that hopeful. It wasn't hopeful. It was complete, utter, delusional denial. And there you sit, telling me he wants to see me." The laughter dies; his voice quiets. "You don't put someone you… want to see through anything like that. You don't lie to them in the biggest possible way, even to protect them, and then expect to come waltzing back into their lives. And it wasn't just me you both lied to."

Mycroft bows his head, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "John."

"And don't you say you're sorry. You pretended to be just as devastated. What was it, a game for you two?"

"He misses you."

Mycroft offers the sentence with a strange kind of reticence. It is uncharacteristic. And it strikes John: Sherlock has never actually delegated Mycroft to do anything for him. The thought on its own takes some of the edge from his furious hysteria.

But John will not say he misses Sherlock. The words could not do the feeling justice. It is all-encompassing. Evident in the way he lived his life around a void rather than trying to close it back up.

"I can't."

"Not won't?"

Glancing at Mycroft's reflection in the mirror over the mantel, John says, "Does it seem like I can manage seeing him at the moment?"

Mycroft's expression tightens and briefly, the resemblance he shares with Sherlock is unmistakable. Then his face melts back into its customary unequivocal diplomacy. "He is going to keep trying."

"I know. And I'm not trying to make him do penance."

"No."

"He hasn't come here."

"No."

There is a finality to that 'no,' although John doesn't know if it is to prohibit questions about where Sherlock has been, or to answer that he has not been back to Baker Street. For all John knows, Sherlock could have gotten in and seen that everything was as it had been, more or less.

John sighs when Mycroft rises, straightening his suit as he does so. Even at this time of night, Mycroft looks pristine. John wonders how Sherlock looks, but then decides he doesn't want to know.

"Call me when you change your mind."

Not 'if,' but 'when.' Well, the Holmes siblings did seem to monopolize the talent of foresight. Without a handshake and only a curt nod, Mycroft is going down the stairs and avoiding the places where he first made them creak. This time, John hears the front door shut because he is listening for it.

He stands in front of the fireplace, staring at the doorway.

A small buzz sounds from the mantle, and John gazes down at his mobile to see he's gotten a text message. Since there's a total of about four people who actually text him, and until a month ago, one was dead, he can't think of who'd be doing it right now. He opens the message but nearly drops the little device.

_Always thought that bed upstairs was uncomfortable… glad to see you've been sleeping in mine instead. -S.H._


End file.
